Brighton Museum and Art Gallery

Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, with its rich and diverse collections, creates a vibrant cultural centre in and around the Royal Pavilion estate in the heart of the city of Brighton & Hove.

Dynamic and innovative galleries provide greatly improved access to the Museum's nationally and locally important collections. Objects are displayed in stimulating contexts with a wide range of interpretative techniques, including interactive information technology.

Improved facilities include: the Museum entrance in the Royal Pavilion gardens with a spacious foyer and shop; improved disabled access; education facilities with an art room and a dedicated education 'pavilion'. The Museum has worked with community groups to broaden access to its collections and services. A Hindu shrine in the World Art gallery created with the local Gujarati community, and oral histories of local people are examples of these collaborations.

Discounts

The World Art collection at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery is a Designated Collection of national importance.

The Designated collections of non-western art and anthropology include particularly fine textile collections, such as the Green Collection from Burma.

Part of Brighton & Hove Museums' Designated Collection of Decorative Art, which you can also see at Preston Manor, Hove Museum & Art Gallery and Brighton Pavilion, is on display here. Please contact Brighton Museums for more information if you wish to see a specific item.

The collections of decorative arts include the Regency furniture and silver-gilt displayed in the Royal Pavilion, the Macquoid furniture at Preston Manor, the Willett Collection of ceramics illustrating popular history, and outstanding holdings of British and European 20th century decorative design and craft.

Highlights at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery include the nationally important collections of 20th Century Art & Design, Fashion, Paintings, Ceramics and World Art.

Key artists and exhibits

Designated Collection

Exhibition details are listed below, you may need to scroll down to see them all.

Exhibition (temporary)

The Museum of Transology

20 July 2017 — 4 November 2018 *on now

This bold, brave and profound collection of artefacts and photographic portraiture began with donations from Brighton’s vibrant trans community. It is now the largest collection representing trans people in the UK – if not the world.

This display challenges the idea that gender is fixed, binary and biologically determined by exploring how the objects reflect the participants’ self-determined gender journeys.

This launches Be Bold, a series of collaborative exhibitions and events, programmed with Brighton & Hove’s LGBTQ communities.

Suitable for

Any age

Admission

Adult £5.20Child £3.00Concession £4.20Brighton & Hove Residents FREE

Website

Glyn Philpot

20 July 2017 — 22 September 2018 *on now

This display explores the artist’s life, including his relationships with Henry Thomas and his patrons, his hope to reconcile the religious image with the contemporary and the modernising impact he had on portraiture.

Admission

Website

John Piper’s Brighton Aquatints

12 December 2017 — 3 June 2018 *on now

The significance of John Piper’s Brighton Aquatints book – published just after the outbreak of war in November 1939 – in his artistic development is widely recognised, but has never before been explored in detail. The slim volume of landscape views, with its marbled paper boards, hovered on the brink of Victorian pastiche; while his choice of a printmaking medium redolent of the early 19th century seemed a perfect match for the architectural period of the town.

But for all the nostalgia of its subject and style, Brighton Aquatints was a clear indicator of Piper’s awareness of avant-garde art. This display will explore Brighton Aquatints through related books, letters, sketches, prints and designs, and will be curated by architectural and design historian Alan Powers. It will coincide with the publication of a new edition of Piper’s Brighton Aquatints with an introduction and commentary by Powers, published by The Mainstone Press.

Admission

Website

Events details are listed below. You may need to scroll down or click on headers to see them all. For events that don't have a specific date see the 'Resources' tab above.

Event

Object Journeys Fashioning Africa

31 March — 26 September 2018

Featuring stunning new objects collected by Brighton Museum as part of the Fashioning Africa project, and objects loaned from the British Museum, these displays showcase textiles and garments from Nigeria and South Africa, reflecting changing fashion practices.

Co-created with Fashioning Africa Collecting Panel members Edith Ojo and Tshepo Skwambane and part of a collaborative project with the British Museum called Object Journeys, a three year Heritage Lottery Fund funded programme. This national programme aims to support community partners to research and explore museum collections and create new displays in response to this investigation.

Admission

Brighton Museum admission payable

Workshop, club or activity

Brighton Museum Free Day: Love Your Museum

14 April 2018 10am-5pm

Join us once a month for one of our themed Free Days at Brighton Museum, with family activities and a chance to get up close and personal to objects not usually on display.

Celebrate Brighton Museum with discovery trails, behind the scenes secrets, pop up talks and much more.

Website

E-mail

Telephone

03000 290900

All information is drawn from or provided by the venues themselves and every effort is made to ensure it is correct. Please remember to double check opening hours with the venue concerned before making a special visit.

The Exotic Creatures exhibition At Brighton's Royal Pavilion gives an intriguing insight into early menageries and zoos. See George IV’s ‘liger’ painting for the first time and uncover the story of his precious giraffe.